Beck with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Steven Reineke at the Hollywood Bowl. Photo by Farah Sosa/LA Phil.
In Monday’s (7/8) Variety, Chris Willman writes, “Beck‘s performance with the LA Phil Saturday night … represented an apotheosis of the kind of pop-star-at-the-pops event that the Hollywood Bowl was veritably made for, with Beck going mostly off-brand as a live artist to emphasize the most languid parts of his catalog for maximal symphonic synergy. You might be tempted to call it an ‘only in L.A.’ night if you didn’t know that the show is one of seven Beck is doing with resident orchestras across the country this month … Other cities and other coasts deserve a piece of this big a musical win, too. Seeing Beck with an orchestra seems more inevitable than it would be with almost anyone else, even though he hasn’t previously indulged in it much as a concert performer. His father, David Campbell, is one of the more famous orchestral arrangers in rock circles, well beyond his work with his son…. The senior Campbell is also said to have overseen all the new arrangements that were created for this tour … The 20-song set Beck did with the Phil this weekend (not counting an orchestra-free three-number encore segment) more than doubled the amount of time that he was previously able to devote to his symphonic side in a show.”
